The Practical Value of Topical Preaching

Just some thoughts about topical preaching -- that is, speaking on one verse, rather than preaching through a lengthy paragraph or an entire book of the Bible...

Topical preaching lends itself easier to application. Your focus is not so much on getting the material right, as it is on preaching it for some clearly defined pastoral goal. Often, the reason you pick the verse is because you see some are aof need or weakness in the congregation. I think you can be overly cautious as a pastor about not wanting to be too pointed in your choice of subjects. By avoiding being too pointed, it's possible to become too blunted and generic -- i.e., you preach through the Olivet Discourse or the Ten commandments even though that's not where the pains of life are pressing in most unbearably on your people. As a result, you've preached the Word, and there is always good that will come of that, but perhaps I've done it with less pastoral insight than I might have done.

Topical preaching is also expository. Spekaing on topics, or speaking based on just a verse or two, shouldn't be treated as the opposite of expository preaching. Expository preaching is not limited to a verse-by-verse explanation of lengthy passages. You can "exposit" anything, whether it be one verse out of the shortest Psalms, or preaching through the entire book of Romans. The challenge is to exposit any section of Scripture in a clear, accurate way.

Topical preaching can lend itself to a motivational emphasis more readily than long-passage exposition. There are lots of times when the congregation needs to be lifted up, or motivated in some other positive way.

It's good for a topical series to have one clear thread to hang on. By topical, I don't mean preaching like a circus performer who leaps from the back of one prancing horse to another every single week. For example, i'm now doing the fruit of the Spirit. I'm not jumping from topic to topic to topic.

Topical preaching allows you to show the congregation to breadth, harmony, and interrelatedness of the whole Bible. Where marching through a long section allows you to cover depth, the depth is just there at that point. The danger to beware is, again, jumping around a bit too much, or throwing too many Bible verses at the audience. I also need to preach at a moderate enough pace that the average listener can keep up in his mind, and not get confused.